Fire Tigress
by Understandable Enigma
Summary: Our heroine is not a ninja or the member of an esteemed bloodline: not at all. She is not a resident of a hidden village. Why is she our heroine? Because she leaves home looking for adventure and along the way meets unexpected people...I suck at summaries
1. Chapter 1

In the land of fire, in a secluded forest hideout, we find the heroine to our story. You may be asking yourself; what is she doing, hiding in the forest? Is she training? Is she planning how to save the world? Is she doing her utmost to preserve and protect that which is good and righteous? Well, if you were thinking any of these things, the answer is no. No, we find our heroine, Suzuguchi Emi, lying on the floor of a cave, snoring. 

You may be thinking that, in a world of ninja, that Emi was herself a ninja. However, she wasn't. She was your average 15-year-old girl...Well OK, not _average_. She had basic self-defense skills, was fair at martial arts and was a pretty good hand at swordplay. However, she didn't know how to use chakra like a ninja, and therefore couldn't perform any ninjutsus or genjutsus. No, what set Emi apart was the pet tiger. Sprawled next to her in the cave was a medium-sized tiger, adolescent, with bold black stripes and claws. His dark orange fur was lighter than Emi's hair, which was a dark crimson. The tiger's great white paws twitched while he slept, indicative of dreams. Yes, Kazuhito was a frightening sight, though he had a thoroughly not-scary name, it meaning "benevolent one".

Presently, Kazuhito stirred from his slumber, awoken by hunger. He blinked his huge golden eyes lazily, and then stretched his lean body luxuriously. Having completed his short morning ritual, Kazuhito proceeded to wake his master by licking the knots and dirt out of her hair. The third lick, he caught a particularly nasty knot on his hairy tongue, and wound up lifting Emi up off the ground by her hair. Not even she could sleep through that.

"GAH!" she yelled, annoyed. She flapped her hand at Kazuhito, shooing him away, then went to run her hand through her hair and got a handful of tiger saliva. She winced and said, "Thanks, Kazuhito, I _really_ needed that." Kazuhito, looking pleased with himself, proceeded to wash own fur enthusiastically, knowing that he had to be clean in order to sneak up on his prey(nothing shouts "Hey, I'm over here!" like a dirty, smelly tiger). Emi rolled her eyes at her friend, and proceeded to head to the stream to do her own washing.

Emi and Kazuhito had a basic routine: Kazuhito gets up, Emi gets woken by Kazuhito, Kazuhito washes himself and Emi washes herself and her clothes in the stream, they hunt, they eat breakfast, they train, they eat lunch, they play around (all work and no play is bad for the soul!), they eat dinner, they sleep. So the two have lived for the past year and a half, but soon their routine was about to change. See, Emi left home so that she could see the world, visit new places, learn new things. However, she promised her father when she left home that she'd train for at least a year before setting out anywhere, because her father was worried that she wouldn't be strong enough to defend herself against attack. Back then, Kazuhito had been much smaller and weaker, not able to help out much in a fight, so her father wanted Emi to train and wait for Kazuhito to grow. Emi insisted on leaving home and training alone, though, because she knew that if she trained at home and waited that her parents would just come up with another excuse to keep her home and safe. So, finally, today was going to be the last day she spent here in this familiar forest near home.

When she was clean, Emi grabbed a piece of cloth and tied it around her head and used it to keep her increasingly unruly bangs out of her eyes. She positioned the makeshift hair band so the knot was under her long hair and the cloth rested atop her head, with her bangs tucked neatly underneath. Normally she wasn't nearly so meticulous about her appearance, but she wanted her family's last impression of her to be one that was well-groomed...Her mother had always been a pest about things like that. As she made her way back to the cave, she snagged some birds and rabbits, some other small animals and picked edible herbs to use for her food for the day. When Emi finally made it back to the cave she found that Kazuhito had also bagged some delicious treats, and was already chowing down. Emi hastily cooked and ate her breakfast, and tucked the rest of her kill away to be eaten later in the day. Then, grabbing her bag, she and Kazuhito set off to her hometown to bid farewell to her family for the last time.

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Emi and Kazuhito reached their home village several hours later, and were given respectful bows or deceptively friendly waves from the people in the village. Most people disliked or feared the twosome, but neither paid the villagers any mind. Minutes later they reached Emi's childhood home, and could smell the familiar scents of Emi's mother, father, little brother, and grandmother. Smiling, Emi opened the door and called, "Yooohoooooo, anyone miss me?"

"EMI-NEE-CHAN!!!" Seconds later a little ball of brown hair and blue clothes collided with her stomach, hugging her fiercely.

"Oof..." Emi grunted, then smiled at her little brother. "Nice to see you too, Ken."

"Did you come to say goodbye, for good this time?" Ken asked his sister, a little sad.

Emi crouched down so she was on the same level as her six-year-old brother. "I'm not leaving forever," she said, "but yeah, this time I'll be going far away, and you and Kaa-san won't be able to come and bring me care packages every month. I imagine that I'll be gone for quite a while, going to see all sorts of new places...But when I come back you can bet I'll have all sorts of great stories to tell you!"

"Promise?"

"I promise," said Emi as she cuddled her little brother. Then, letting go she stood up and saw her father waiting for his hug. Emi was happy to oblige.

"I'll miss you," he said quietly.

"It's not like I'm leaving forever," she laughed. "You sound just like Ken, Tou-san."

Her father smiled weakly, then said simply, "Have fun." Then he left to back to whatever he's been doing.

Emi then went into the kitchen where she knew she'd find both her mother and her grandmother. Once she did, she hugged her teary-eyed mother, who quickly returned to cooking, not wanting Emi to see her cry. When Emi turned to her grandmother, she got quite a different reaction.

"You still here?" her grandmother asked incredulously. "Get a move on, while you're young!" Her grandmother flapped a hand at her, grinning.

Emi smiled. "Later, baa-chan," she said simply, then she left her home. Once she reached the outskirts of the village, her brother Ken finally stopped following her and simply watched his sister walk away.

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Once she knew no one was around to hear, she turned to Kazu and asked, "So, where do you think we should go first?"

**We should visit the hid****den villages,** the tiger stated matter-of-factly. **They're probably really interesting, and you don't need specific papers to get in if you're a civilian: all you'd need is normal broad travel papers, which we have already.** He was right: since the Ninja Wars had ended, the hidden villages weren't really hidden anymore, and since there was mostly peace they began to encourage tourism to pay off war debts.

Emi bit her lip, unsure. "Do you really think they'd believe I was a civilian? I mean, a pet tiger is pretty weird, especially one I can talk to."

**It's not your fault you can talk to me,** Kazuhito said. **You just can. It's not something that you can control.**

"Yeah," replied Emi, "but if they find out about it then they might get suspicious..."

**Then don't let them find out about it.**

Emi chuckled. "Brilliant plan," she said sarcastically. She paused. "I'm hungry."

**Then let's eat,** Kazuhito said bluntly.

"No, I think I'll just ignore my hunger till I pass out."

**The sarcasm is really unnecessary, you know.**

"Then stop stating the obvious."

**You did it first by randomly saying you were hungry.**

Emi rolled her eyes and looked for a clearing to spend the night. Once she found one she set up her bedroll and got firewood for cooking her food. Kazu stalked off to get something for himself. Once they were both well-fed and Emi had given Kazu anything she hadn't eaten, she let the fire die down and lay in her bedroll, staring at the stars and listening to the crickets. Kazu curled up beside her, lending her warmth. Emi stroked him absently and thought. Then, she broke the silence.

"So, our first stop is Konohagakure?"

**Mmmm...yup,** Kazuhito replied sleepily.

Emi smiled. "Konoha, here we come," she said tiredly, and drifted off to sleep.

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**A/N: Ok, yeah, let me know what you think. I don't know where this is going really, I'm just going with the flow. Reviewers get glomps and lollipops, flamers get beat with a stick, and people who criticize get laughed at (if I thought there was a way to change it to make it better it wouldn't be up here now would it?). Ja, ne.**


	2. HOPE!

My Beloved Readers,

My Beloved Readers,

THERE IS HOPE!! Now, I know I have been away for an excruciatingly long period of time, but the fact is that I had writer's block, as I said in my other note. My computer was also broken, but that was quickly fixed. Writer's block, however, is not so easy to repair. The fact of the matter is that I was in a slump, and you'll all have to forgive me for that…If you can't, well then whatever. There will be new chapters VERY soon, and I hope you all haven't given up on me! I'M BACK!!

Truly,

--Understandable Enigma--


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